PJNet

Kate Parry, senior editor/politics and education at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. PJNet exclusive story about the civic journalism movement in Japan:

Circulation was slowly declining and regional newspaper editors worried
encroaching national newspapers would take a deeper bite out of their
numbers. They were beginning to experiment with a movement called civic
journalism aimed at engaging citizens in their communities via newspapers -
and reversing the circulation trend.

A description of American newspapers in the early 1990s? It could be,
but this was Japan during the past year.

As the civic journalism movement has matured and gained mainstream
status in many U.S. newsrooms, it is attracting fresh interest among
journalists in other countries facing journalistic and business pressures
similar to those that spawned the movement here more than a decade ago.

This international interest in civic journalism manifested itself for
those of us in Minnesota in recent years as visiting journalists from the
former Soviet Union came to the St. Paul Pioneer Press and quizzed me about
how they could use concepts of civic journalism to engage their citizens in
building democratic societies. The Twin Cities, with two large dailies,
public television and public radio all engaged in civic journalism
endeavors, has become a regular stop for foreign journalists looking for new
ideas.

Then, in September I was invited to come to Japan to share some of the
lessons we had learned over a decade of practicing civic journalism. Also
invited was Geneva Overholser, the former Washington Post ombudsman and New York Times editorial board member who now holds an endowed chair at the Missouri School of Journalism’s Washington bureau. She had raised concerns about some of the excesses of the civic journalism movement in the past, but at the same time had worked hard as editor of the Des Moines Register to listen to readers and write about issues important to them.

The setting for our presentations would be a meeting of regional
editors and reporters in Tokyo. While that kind of a gathering might be part
of the fabric of the American journalism community, it was an historic
moment in Japanese journalism. Other than press clubs used to gain access
to various sources, the journalism community there has been fragmented, with
no national organization for newspaper editors. No school of journalism
that might bring national standards to the craft exists in any Japanese
university; media companies have trained their own employees.

But these editors facing competition from national newspapers were
banding together to strategize. Professors from several Japanese
universities were prodding the process – hoping the potential of
establishing a journalism school at a university might be stimulated by
such a group.

I was glad to go and share what we had learned at the St. Paul Pioneer
Press over a decade of experiments and projects. I described the movement
from its most radical and controversial days to the way the concepts of
civic journalism have become part of the daily beat reporting structure in
our newsroom. Geneva and I lectured on the topic at the national meeting,
then with students from Tokyo, Waseda and Sophia Universities and also at
regional newspapers.

Everywhere I went, I found extraordinary examples of civic journalism
already underway in Japan – with an eagerness to take the concept to higher
levels. It suggests that American journalists should be looking well beyond
our borders for the next innovations in civic journalism.

A few examples of how this movement is translating in Japan:

The Tokai Earthquake Campaign
Each morning, the reporters and editors at the regional newspaper The
Shizuoka Shimbun in Tokai go to work wondering if this is the day they will
need to cover a massive earthquake that scientists are certain will hit the
region sometime in the next few years.

The government estimates 220,000 buildings will be destroyed and
forecasts that 8,800 people will die.

Two years ago, The Shizuoka Shimbun started a project called “The
Tokai Earthquake Campaign” aimed at driving down the number of deaths by
methodically preparing the community to survive an earthquake through
“pre-quake reporting” rather than the traditional approach of covering
disaster after the fact.

Printing the articles in full-color pull-out sections and pages with
no advertising, the newspaper has now published 130 reports. Their goal was
to empower their readers with sound information, prevent them from going
into denial about the potential for an earthquake – which is extraordinarily
high – and yet stop short of panicking the community.

The reports have combined scientific analysis of the situation with
practical information on surviving earthquakes gleaned from researching
devastating earthquakes around the world. The newspaper also has sponsored a
“Weekly Earthquake News Disaster Prevention School for Parents and Children”
at local elementary schools. In those training programs, which draw overflow
crowds, participants are taught skills such as how to jump from high places
or escape from smoke and survive. They practice drills for how the family
will respond on the terrible day the quake hits.

Ridding Hiroshima of gangs
The Chugoku Shimbun staff, concerned about increasing youth gang
activity in Hiroshima and ties they had unearthed between the gangs and
organized crime syndicates, decided to help their community begin to see
ways to reclaim their city from the gangs.

The newspaper describes its goal this way: “The series started with
the objective of thinking together with our readers about ways to restore
safety, peacefulness and dignity of Hiroshima. It gave voice to the victims
of gang violence…. The articles appealed for support from the citizens of
Hiroshima and stressed the necessity of cooperation from everyone involved,
in order to try to persuade the young men to leave the gangs.”

The newspaper’s efforts resulted in a remarkable turnaround in
Hiroshima, where gang activity and crimes dropped dramatically, city
ordinances were passed to curb gangs, and citizens began a campaign to reach
out to young gang members. In the end, groups of citizens enticed the gang
members into volunteer activities and eventually found them jobs.

Giving citizens a voice in Tohoku
Last year, after an agricultural supplies dealer was arrested in
Yamagata Prefecture for selling unregistered chemicals, the staff of The Kahoku Shinpo in the farming areas of Tohoku began investigating unregistered chemicals and found widespread use throughout Japan – even on “organic” farms.

The newspaper covered the situation as a major investigation, but
followed up with projects aimed at helping readers figure out how they could
have an impact on the practices of the giant, powerful food production
industry in Japan.

The Kahoku Shinpo started an online “Fresh Fruit and Vegetable
Research Lab” as a virtual think tank to tackle the problem in a way that
included the voices of everyday Japanese citizens. Producers and consumers
both posted comments to the website, and an ongoing, well-informed
conversation occurred on an entirely new level over this issue. The idea
of connecting producers and consumers through civic journalism has become a
standard approach to agriculture coverage in the Tohoku farming region.

Examining how to raise children
After writing numerous stories about the trend for Japanese couples to
have fewer children, child abuse and an increase in shocking crimes
committed by youths, The Shinano Mainichi developed a project aimed at provoking a community-wide discussion on child rearing.

Titled “Bringing Up Our Children, Growing Up Ourselves,” the project
began with a series of articles in the newspaper and then broadened into
community forums sponsored by the newspaper, which also provided child care
for pre-school children. Hundreds of citizens attended the nine forums on topics such as fathers’ roles in child rearing, raising children with mild disabilities, and what to do when children are difficult or when parents doubt their parenting
abilities.

After the newspaper-sponsored forums, many of the participants
continued the discussions in groups that formed to regularly get together
and talk about raising children. Online, The Shinano Mainichi launched an
ongoing discussion on raising children – with 800 registered users.

Editors from throughout Japan described similarly engaging projects and
were eager to hear about techniques Americans editors had tried. In the end,
we brought back as many good ideas about civic journalism as we left in
Japan. It suggests efforts to continue to refine this approach to
journalism would be enriched by actively engaging journalists beyond North
America in our network of civic journalists.

Kate Parry can be reached at (651) 228-5522 or kparry@pioneerpress.com.

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